Business - New & Used DVD Sales

[Matthew_28]

Hello everyone,

I would like some feedback please on a potential business idea I'm currently thinking of pursuing alongside my current 8am to 4pm full time employment.

I fully understand and appreciate that it's not a 'new' idea per se, merely an adaptation of an existing business model that I think I could tweak and make work.

I am however cautious of the following:-

1. Longevity of DVD as a medium (is this still a popular format?)
2. Do people still buy and collect DVDs?
3. How much life is left in this industry? Is it (used DVD sales) too saturated?
4. Perhaps more people are moving to online media and video on demand services (broadband infrastructure improving)? How will this integrate into handheld and portable devices, smartphones, tablets etc and their battery life.

I have had quite a good level of success on eBay, Amazon, Play.com etc market places and there seems to still be a market for used DVDs (not sure how long is left though), however price point, service, and delivery time appear to be key factors (mostly price).

Market places such as eBay and Amazon certainly attract a good quantity of customers but eBay, PayPal etc all take a fair share of any potential profit.. could I operate a separate website and eBay shop alongside... (e.g. similar to Thats Entertainment, Zavvi, zoverstocks, estocks etc). I'm sure most of these are one of the same company.

These companies appear to use Music Magpie as a means to source their used DVDs "stock", usually giving out a pitence e.g. £0.30 and £0.50 per used DVD. The outlet for this stock comes in such guises as Thats Entertainment. I believe they are based in Guernsey - how would this affect my operation? I am based on UK mainland.

I would need two separate, independant websites, one to source and gather stock and another to act as an outlet to sell.

How do the Thats Entertainment website and Music Magpie websites work -coding? ASP? Databases? How complicated/time involved would it be to create a similar site? Anyone any idea an approximation of cost? Ease of maintaining and managing databases? / adding and amending stock levels etc?

I would appreciate any comments / feedback you may wish to contribute.

Thank you.

Regards,
Matthew

 

[Simply Business]

So your business idea is to sell used DVD's? If that's right, why not branch out into Blu-rays, games etc as there's potentially more overhead on these so therefore maybe more money to be made.

Cost wise, setting up a site wouldn't cost too much as you could always get a separate content management system such as Drupal, Wordpress etc to do the hard work for you and all you do is fill in the pages with your stuff.

It's a tough one to call as you're going up against some big players who operate tight margins and a small business such as yours would struggle to stand out in the crowd. Saying that, I used to work on a market stall selling and swapping dvd's and games and business was always brisk!

 

[Matthew_28]

Hello jappie10,

Thank you for your reply, I really appreciate it.

Yes the main idea is to basically sell used DVDs, I've got a couple of ideas of how I could tweak my offering. To be honest I've been quite enjoying it casually on eBay, Amazon, Play.com and the like on evenings and weekends over the past few months, not making masses amounts, but enjoying it (probably more than my day job to be fair, but the day job pays too much to give up at the moment, needs must with bills, mortgage etc). It just kind of started out by accident when I was selling first my DVD collections and then my friends... I got used to knowing which titles went for what money, which ones are out of print/rare and which ones to look out for, collectors editions, special editions etc.

I believe CEX have the same business model apart from that they are upfront about where their stock comes from (all through the same business I believe). I would probably focus on online sales rather than through a bricks and mortar high street shop...(I believe many high street stores are still dying from high overheads depending on location?). I suspect online is the way to go....just need to raise awareness.

I am really keen on a certain genre to be honest and I'm not sure whether to just focus and specialise on just a single genre e.g. sports (example) -and concentrate just on that perhaps? I am quite knowledgeable in this area. or would that be too niche? or just and go for everything.

I agree regards the Blu-Ray discs -but not sure how long this will last. I'm also a bit dubious about console games as they seem to come with downloadable content and multiplayer access codes (single use codes) nowadays which kind of renders /limits some online multiplayer games useless once the code has already been activated. I kind of think this is the video games industries way to try to reduce game sharing and the second hand market in order to boost revenue and try make those people buy the games brand new.

I agree I would need to totally focus on bulk, sales, tight margins. I would have to shift large quantities. Hoepfully having minimum overheads should help, along with good customer service and guarantees that discs will work and be quickly despatched... quicker than arriving from Guernsey perhaps.. first class post? cost to consider..

Thanks.

Regards,
Matthew

 

[Faevilangel]

IMHO if you want to break the DVD / games market, you need a niche as you won't beat the big players on price or the stock.

Think different dvd genre's such as horror, comedy or even niche(r) such as 70's horror films.

People will be looking for the more out of manufacture films, in specific niches.

 

[Matthew_28]

IMHO if you want to break the DVD / games market, you need a niche as you won't beat the big players on price or the stock.

Think different dvd genre's such as horror, comedy or even niche(r) such as 70's horror films.

People will be looking for the more out of manufacture films, in specific niches.

Hello Faevilangel,

Thank you for your reply, that is what I was thinking to be honest. I have a particular niche/genre in mind which I am very interested and knowledgable in. As you mention I keep an eye out for quite rare or out of print releases, business for these may be slower but I can usually make higher margins on these types.

Regards,

Matthew

 

[Matthew_28]

Anyone else any feedback, comments, or suggestions please?

Regards,

Matthew

 

[Simply Business]

Hey Matthew,

Yeah, you're sort of right about the games market with the codes and such, but a lot of people just plain can't afford a £50.00 game so most wait for the game to drop into the second hand market (your baby) and they're quite happy to live without the extra content (which, is usually a downloadable extra anyway that they can buy at a later date - beware of PC games thought as they usually come with codes that render the whole game useless after it's been activated by somebody).

There's definitely money to be made in this sector; it's just a question of how much.

 

[crazyshady]

What about rare films and films that no longer being sold? There are lots of films that don't have any copyrights to them or the company that owned them went bust therefore no one legally owns them. Some films have never even made it to DVD or blu ray officially. I know some places in America make a lot of money off these kinds of things. They burn them to DVD-R on request but I've never seen a site like that here in the UK and it's not breaking the law because technically no one owns the films. That's why at some conventions like horror film conventions the DVD side does big business because you have traders selling stuff that cannot be be bought elsewhere and will never be offered in any high street store. Lots of hidden gems out there. Some go a bit further and put them on the computer and tinker about with the colour and contrast levels, try and make the picture look better. Maybe there are laws against it in this country but for films in the public domain and especially films that were released in cinemas but ultimately lost any copyright they had or the company that owned them went bust and there were many of those happening in the 70's and 80's. It might be worth looking into.

 

[Jet Virtual]

The DVD market is shrinking. Not great business to go into a shrinking market ...

 

[Matthew_28]

Thank you all for your replies and input so far, much appreciated.

Regards,

Matthew